


A twist in the story

by melonbutterfly



Category: Star Trek: 2009
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-15
Updated: 2009-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyota knows she's the only person Spock has for emotional comfort, the only person on the ship, at all, that he can leave aware of his feelings without feeling shame-even if the feelings are for their Captain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nyota loved Spock.

She did, she really did. Only it wasn't the kind of love everybody seemed to believe she had for him, ever since she had kissed him before he and Kirk had beamed away. That new engineer was a gossip without intending to; he just didn't know when to keep his mouth shut—but it was not like it was important anyway.

She loved him. Not from the beginning; no. Unlike other people at the Academy, she at first had admired Spock for his skills only; then, they had worked on a project together, he because he was the teacher and she because of her exceptional skills, and she had gotten to know him better. And getting to know a Vulcan wasn't easy, with the smooth, cool and logic shell they all kept. Maybe Spock was only different because of his human genes, or most Vulcans were like that; she didn't care. She only cared about what she found beneath that shell, that mask Spock kept; the passionate, curious, observant person that so few people knew.

So they became friends. Becoming friends with Spock was even harder than getting to know him; he was so unwilling to accept that such a thing as friendship existed for a Vulcan, and a Vulcan was what he wanted to be. That he wasn't, not completely, gave him a hard time, and his insecurities were vast. It made her want to help him, to support him, but there was no way to do so; he was aware of his academic skills and value, and the value she wanted to prove to him he had was one he didn't even want to have, but so desperately needed.

It was hard. And though Spock came to acknowledge their friendship after her persistent presence and insistence that they were friends; her apparent uncaring for the fact that he never admitted to their mutual warm feelings for each other gave him the possibility to slowly approach her, skittish and shy like a burned kitten, but so needy. He didn't break down one day; she stood there, her hand offered and he took a long time to take it; it was a gradual acceptance. Yet, she remembered one incident especially; they had been to some lecture that had gathered a big crowd because it was held by Captain Pike, a well-known and skilled man, and during break she had been staring at him like the young, awed cadet she was, and Spock had put his hand on her arm to show her something. She didn't even remember what it was anymore, but it had been the first time he had touched her on his own, without being conscious of the movement. Nyota herself hadn't been conscious of the meaning until she had been in bed, lying in the darkness and letting the day pass by her inner eye.

And then came that fateful attack, the destroying of Vulcan. When she had kissed him the first time, it hadn't been to show him her romantic interest—that would have been the most awful timing ever—but to reassure him of her love, of her being there for him, with him, even if he wouldn't dare reach out for her. It had been saying "you won't need to reach for me, for I'm already there, right here with you" and "I understand your pain and I feel it too". Him being telepathic, she knew he would understand. And he had; when he had kissed her back, it had been his way of saying that he understood, that he appreciated and that he needed her. At a different time, he maybe would even have been able to say it—that was how far they had gotten in their mutual trust and friendship—but the destroying of Vulcan, the loss of his mother had hit him hard, made him feel vulnerable, and he couldn't have spoken the words if his life depended on them.

Which is why she had been ready to finish strangling Kirk when he had provoked Spock like that herself. Now, she could acknowledge that it had been necessary, but at the time… she could not.

Before that incident, she had felt some kind of unwilling fondness for Jim Kirk. He was one of those bold, cocky, self-assured boys that tended to annoy the hell out of her, but he had the skills and knowledge to back that attitude, which annoyed her only more, but the respect he clouded but nonetheless felt for Starfleet and its personal—more or less every single one of them—somehow made it alright. Kirk knew what was necessary to reach a goal, and he knew where the line was, and while he tended to poke it, sometimes reach past it, he very rarely actually overstepped it.

She had learned that in the months on the Enterprise ever since he had been officially made Captain, and it in no way meant that she liked him, personally.

For she didn't, and yet she did. It was very complicated; there was no logical reason to dislike him, it wasn't even fair, and it was personal. Nyota had a problem with him because of something he didn't even know, was probably not even really aware of, though she tended to sometimes doubt that. Kirk was a lot more observant than he seemed.

But in fact she knew that he had no idea, and that somehow made it alright and worse.

It was she who held Spock in the evening, who let him live through every single one of the emotions Kirk had dragged him through during the day, who kept him composed and whole when he shivered his pain away. It was she her who gave him at least a little bit of the love he needed, even though she was the wrong person; it was she who he talked to, after he had finally gotten over that inner barrier that forbid him to talk about any feelings.

And it was she that told him the name of that thing that had him under its control; it was she who helped him find a category for it. Spock was someone who lived in categories and definitions, and filing that thing away had both made it harder and easier for him.

She had told him it was called "love", and she clearly remembered the absolute stillness that had overcome him when she had said it for the first time—would remember the expression on his face for the rest of her life. It had been a strange mix of hope and shock, horror and elation; and over all that a terrified pleasure, sublime pain. If anyone would ever ask her what she associated most with love, she'd remember Spock's face, and she'd say "Pleasurepain, painpleasure; something equally horrifying and exquisite." And she never, ever wanted to feel it herself. The life she now led was all she wanted, all she needed; she wanted to keep it, to keep the ability to enjoy it.

Unlike Spock, for whom everything he had ever wanted had now turned bittersweet; sour and soothing at the same time. "It's love", she had said, and it was true. As unlikely as it seemed, as unlogical as it was; Spock had love, real, romantic love, for Jim Kirk, who still took great pleasure in goading him, though his demeanour had changed a little—it was now more banter than the cruel, sadistic pleasure of a bully.

And Nyota watched Spock watch Kirk, and wondered when it all had turned wrong; wondered why life had to always take the most unexpected turns, and why it somehow always had to be Spock who took the brunt of it.

That wasn't entirely true, of course, but it certainly felt like it, she thought and watched Spock turn away with no expression, knew that inside, he was trying to swallow down the tide of emotions that rose in him whenever he watched Kirk in a quiet moment. And she watched Kirk's eyes flicker to his First Officer for a second, a flicker of triumph in his eyes.

Sometimes she just wanted to hit Jim Kirk.


	2. The End of the Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tension between Spock and Kirk reaches its peak.

It was to the day nine months since the start of their mission that it happened. She would always remember this tiny detail the most, despite all the way more remarkable things that had happened, because years later that very same day she'd sit with Jim Kirk and drink whatever alcoholic beverage was currently in reach and laugh about the analogy of human pregnancy; something had been growing inside Spock (and Jim, who admitted to the fact with his usual bright, totally unembarrassed demeanour), and nine months after it had officially began, it hatched.

Which was a surprisingly accurate description of what had actually happened.

She didn't even remember why anymore, but that day hadn't been very enjoyable; nothing remarkably bad had happened, but nothing good either, and for some reason the crew had been growing restless because for nearly two weeks, next to nothing had happened. It had gone so far that random asteroids had grown to be something exciting, and that was really depressing in hindsight.

So, Jim had been understandably tense; everyone had been more or less tense. McCoy's tongue was even sharper than usual, Scotty constantly complained about something or other, mainly the food and quality of it, and only Chekov seemed totally unaffected; after nine months she had yet to see him with anything else but the clumsily cheerful, charming good mood he always seemed to emit.

And Jim? Jim was pouting like a child whose toy had been taken away from him, and in effect his comments towards Spock were sharper. If in the past, what they traded had been two-sided banter, it now more resembled that which it actually presented; a Captain who found his First sufficient, but disliked him on a personal level.

Which, of course, affected Spock in a far greater way than the general mood on the ship could ever hope to achieve, and that in return affected Nyota to the point where she sometimes was just a second away from insubordination—only the knowledge that Spock needed her and that she loved her job (and Spock) kept her from lashing out on Kirk.

All that was piled on her and Spock's shoulders (it was very hard to keep something from Spock, and she didn't even try, knowing that if she did, he may feel tempted to keep something important from her in the future) when they had walked towards Spock's quarters that evening. She had needed some medicine for the cramp in her groin she always got during that time of the month, and Spock had collected the results of his monthly check-up; they had gone to medicine bay together and were now on their way back when they came across their Captain, whose shift had been two hours longer than theirs. It seemed he had come here directly afterwards, which wasn't that strange because his quarters were in the same area as Spock's. Nyota felt Spock next to her tense inwardly and tried to keep her own reaction—a spike of protective aggressiveness, a thought that whispered in her ear "If he says only one word to Spock I'll-"—in check, knowing it would only affect Spock as well since they were so in tune. She hoped Kirk would just politely nod at them, or even just ignore them and simply pass them by without another word, but she was without luck.

For some reason seeing them walking together seemed to ignite a spark of anger in Kirk; she could see it and immediately tensed, feeling the irrational need to place herself in front of Spock. Of course she knew that he could defend herself perfectly well, even better than she could, but she feared that if things continued like this, the emotional strain on Spock would one day prove too much, and at times like this it felt like that day was very close.

And Kirk looked at them, eyes hard with an anger that would have puzzled her, had she taken a second to think about it; he opened his mouth to no doubt say something biting, but Spock spoke first. His voice was calm and controlled as it always was, but Nyota knew better.

"Captain, I resign. You will find my resignation form on your terminal by tomorrow. As per regulations, I will leave the ship when we next come across a Starfleet spacestation. Goodnight."

Back stiff and as tense as she had only seen him that short time he had been captain of the Enterprise after the destroying of Vulcan, Spock walked away from both of them, no doubt feeling but ignoring both their dumbfounded staring after him. The noiseless closing of his doors after he had entered his quarters brought him out of their sight, but didn't stop them from staring at the white door.

Nyota couldn't believe it. She knew this had been a highly emotional reaction, as spontaneous as Spock could be—he had talked to her about leaving Starfleet to join the rest of his race on New Vulcan only a few times before—and she cursed Jim Kirk for causing this. Spock was more observant than she was and he had no doubt calculated the odds of the kind of remark Kirk would say, and he had probably also calculated the odds of himself being able to keep in control. She knew he had been terrified of himself losing control again like back then on the bridge, and she also knew that only Kirk would be able to get such a reaction from Spock. And Spock naturally knew it as well.

And so, he had resigned. He had thought the option through before, and he felt thought the only way to get his complete control back was to get away from Kirk—and he was right. But he wouldn't be happy on New Vulcan—and then again, was he happy here? That she didn't know the answer anymore was the last drop, and with a smile as sweet as saccharine, she turned to Kirk and said "Captain, I suggest you get away from me very quickly or you'll lose your communications officer as well, for I am just a second away from ramming my knee into your groin." And doing some other things she better not mention, or he'd have to fire her either way.

Kirk turned his head to look at her, and any other time she would have laughed about the totally stunned expression on his face. "Uhura, what- _what the hell did I do_?"

That he so arrogantly assumed it was all because of him—even though it actually _was_ —managed to ignite her only further, and Nyota balled her hands into fists and hissed "Just what did you think you were going to achieve by harping at him the way you do day in, day out?" When he only blinked stupidly, she felt the childish impulse to scream and stomp her feet. "But I only- I only wanted to get a reaction from him!", Kirk said, and she snorted in disgust. "Just because you aren't there to hear the noise doesn't mean the tree didn't make one when it fell," she replied before looking him up and down, letting the contempt she felt seep onto her face. "You, Jim Kirk, aren't the man I thought you were." For the first time seriously contemplating her own resignation, she turned away to head for her own quarters, but—and she should have known Kirk never let anyone else have the last word—he stopped her.

"Uhura, wait! I didn't mean to!"

"It's too late for that!", she called over her shoulder and stormed away, heading towards the gym. She needed to train away her anger now, or she'd explode—Spock was most certainly mediating and trying to figure out how and why it had come to this and didn't need her now. In fact, she'd only make it worse with the way her emotions were running rampant. She'd go to him afterwards, when she was calmer.

Three hours later it was well into the ship's night; she had trained for two hours and afterwards had had a long, hot bath, trying to figure out if she could still work under Kirk or not. The answer hadn't come to her yet, but she could talk about it with Spock, depending on how he was. The lights in the halls were dimmed to accommodate the 'night' and she met nobody on the way to his quarters. She rang and waited; he'd know it was her—nobody else came to his private quarters—and if he had finished his meditation, he'd allow her in.

It appeared he had, for the door opened—

Nyota blinked and looked at the pad to check whether she was in the right quarters, but the badge said she was. She linked some more, but before she could say something or even just figure out how to properly react, Kirk, who was standing in the door, rubbed the back of his head and said, "Uhm. Spock won't resign. Talk to you later?" His voice sounded very hopeful.

Nyota blinked again and her mouth said something totally inane, probably because her brain was currently on hold. "You're naked."

"Uh. Yes. No. I mean-" Kirk pulled the tiny towel that was wrapped around his hips a little higher. "A little?"

It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened—or was still happening, a tiny voice in the back of her head remarked unhelpfully with a girly giggle—but she couldn't quite believe it. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, but most of all, she suddenly wanted to break Jim Kirk's nose, for the past weeks', months' hardship had obviously been totally unnecessary. The solution had always been there in Kirk's hands, but instead of acting like the grown adult he claimed he was, he had reacted like a cornered person who lashed out to protect himself.

So, Nyota took a breath, slapped her captain—hard—and smiled her saccharine smile again. "See you tomorrow then," she said, turned and walked away, enjoying the prickling in her hand. That had really been a hard one.


End file.
